Most of Scrooge's awesomeness is based in how he has found more priceless treasures than perhaps any other fictional character: The Sampo, The Land of Xanadu (during his attempt to find the Crown of the Crusader Kings), The Treasure of the Knights Templar, The First Minted coin of Croesus, The Candy-Egg Ruby, The Crown of Genghis Khan, The Philosopher's Stone, The Golden Fleece of Jason, The Fountain of Youth, The Lost Dutchman Mines, and (according to Word of God) his final discovery, The Trojan Horse. Certainly his record is mixed in actually hanging on to the treasures, but that's mainly a result of Scrooge wanting to play fair, which is kind of awesome in itself.

Don Rosa starts off Scrooge's awesome with his victory at the ending of Son of the Sun.

Scrooge beating up and tossing◊ a Beagle Boy out of his dream so he can talk to Goldie, at the end of The Dream Of A Lifetime.

It gets better: Moments before said Beagle Boy threatens Scrooge, only for Donald to proudly proclaim that this isn't the Scrooge he knows: He's 50 years younger and the rough and tough protecter of the Klondike. Cue asskicking.

In The Last Lord of El Dorado, Scrooge and his nephews are on a quest for the titular city of gold, with Flintheart Glomgold following them in a variety of incredibly obvious disguises. Near the end of the story, Scrooge confronts Glomgold and not only reveals that he saw through all of his guises, but also takes the opportunity to rub Glomgold's face in some of his past defeats. Finally, after Glomgold himself discovers the treasure of El Dorado, he "tricks" Scrooge into selling him the bank in which the gold is deposited for a bargain price... which is when Scrooge points out that where Glomgold might own the bank, the gold itself is the property of the owner of the land-which happens to be Scrooge. And as the bank owner, Glomgold owes Scrooge major interest on his deposit-to the tune of all the money in the world. Scrooge never gets this, but he determines that the look on Glomgold's face made the whole thing worth it.

Scrooge's most awesome moment of brilliance has got to be the end of Carl Barks' last story "Horsing Around With History." When Donald and the boys deduce that the Beagle Boys are inside the Trojan Horse, they rush into Scrooge's bin to warn him... only to find that Scrooge was Genre Savvy enough to figure out something was up even before they did with all their clues and already has the Beagle Boys captured!

In the Carl Barks one-shot Somethin' Fishy Here (later remade as Something Fishy), a prank from Donald has him believe fish will now be used as money and all his cash is now worthless. As soon as he's recovered from the shock, uncle Scrooge rebuilds a fortune in fish all by himself, in a single day.

Goldie O'Gilt giving Scrooge "A Little Something Special" in the story of the same name.

Gyro's Little Helper robot using Stonehenge's power to pull Arthur's sword from the stone in The Once And Future Duck.

The climax of The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros gives at least one to each of the titular Three Caballeros: First, Donald, after being put down by Scrooge, Gladstone, and Daisy earlier in the story, finally snaps when the villain of the comic (a native chief turned greedy by civilization) escapes in a canoe, leaving Donald, Jose and Panchito in the lost city of Ophir, with no way to get out (due to the piranha-infested river and the city's location on a high plateau). Donald then grabs a vine, swings into the chief's canoe, and proceeds to give him what for. During the scuffle, Panchito and Jose decide to help their friend. Just then, they notice a gigantic anaconda (which had previously attempted to eat Donald) swimming toward the canoe. Panchito ties the snake's tail to a nearby bridge, while Jose subdues it with only his umbrella. Finally, after the chief falls off an Inevitable Waterfall, Panchito ties up the Anaconda by its neck and he and the other Cabelleros ride out of the ruins on it like a bucking bronco.

GladstoneGander of all people, gets one at the end of "A Little Something Special." Blackheart Beagle is making his escape on a hover-scooter, when Gladstone shouts for the mayor to put a reward on Blackheart's capture. The mayor does, and a gust of wind suddenly causes Blackheart's scooter to become tangled in a banner, which results in Blackheart being deposited unconcious at Gladstone's feet. This marks one of the only times Gladstone has used his luck to help others-and he doesn't even seem to be concerned about collecting the reward.

Another Moment of Awesome for Gladstone is his rescue of Donald in "Donald's Lucky Day". Donald falls into a river and is about to drown. Gladstone, instead of relying on luck, or even just letting Donald flail around, instantly rips of his coat and throws himself into the strong current, carries Donald to shore, and gives him the needed help afterwards.

The Italian Paperinik stories usually show him as a jerk, but once in a while Paperinik asks for his help. Awesomeness ensues:

One story had the villain guessing Paperinik's secret identity as Donald and blackmailing him to let him steal or he'll make his identity public. To cover for it, Paperinik asked Gladstone to substiture for him, feigning he had to do a job out of town and Donald was injured. What follows is an insecure Gladstone (because he knew he could die and he had little experience with Paperinik's weapons) facing the villain and his competent gang and inflicting them one hell of a one-sided beatdown. And at the end of the story, Gladstone volunteers to it again whenever is necessary. Maybe not so awesome, as he now knows he can do it, but considering his laziness...

In one occasion, Paperinik had to face an incredibly powerful jinxo that was blackmailing both Scrooge and Rockerduck, but was thwarted by bad luck every time he tried. How did Gladstone neutralize him? With a phone call: such contact is enough to drain both of their energies, temporarily canceling both Gladstone's luck and the jinxo's ability. At which point the Devilish Avenger swept in and ran the terrified jinxo out of town.

In Paperinik e il Demone del Gioco, Rockerduck was defeating Scrooge by transforming him in a Gambling Addict (an idea ripped off Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Gambler) in his own casino. Paperinik intervened... And while he cured Scrooge with a shock therapy, Gladstone, disguised as Scrooge by Paperinik, went to the casino and won everything in spite of Rockerduck's players cheating. What's better, Rockerduck had anticipated the scenario and had made Gladstone win a three month vacation (in fact he had had the licence for years, but had never used it because he knew what would happen if Gladstone decided to gamble), but when Paperinik called him Gladstone came back, won that crapload of money, and gave it all to charity.

The Italian four-parter story Zio Paperone e l'Ultima Avventura (Scrooge's Last Adventure) in its entirety. The premise? Rockerduck, the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell and Freakin' Flintheart Glomgold do a Villain Team-Up and defeat Scrooge. Magica and the BB exchange targets, so the former makes Scrooge's money vanish, while the latter easily steal the Number One Dime; after such a massive defeat Scrooge's quotations plummet, which allows Flintheart and Rockerduck to buy his entire economical empire. And then they act as benevolent tycoons to gather the masses' sympathies while planning to erase the Money Bin and the entire Killmotor Hill, building a super-technological waste disposal center in their place, just to erase the memory of Scrooges from the hearts of Duckburg's inhabitants. DAMN.

After recovering his spirit Scrooge steamrolls them back: he gains the help of both both Magica, who lost her powers (since Scrooge was bankrupted he wasn't the richest person on the planet anymore, so her plan for richness failed... again... and she was stripped of her powers as a result), and the Beagle Boys, who, since they couldn't get their money (due to Magica losing her powers, thus being unable to make the money reappear), pressured the two billionaires only to get backstabbed by Flintheart. Later, with the help of the entire Duck family plus friends (the full group includes Donald, the nephews, Grandma Duck, Gus, Gladstone, Fethry, Gyro, Brigitta McBridge and Jubal Pomp), he manages to expose Flintheart's "waste disposal facilities" (throwing trash into the bowels of the Earth), takes advantage of both Rockerduck's guilt over Scrooge's (faked) death and fear of Flintheart, and Flintheart's Chronic Backstabbing Disorder to take back Killmotor Hill, and, with the help of the Beagle Boys (saved by Donald as Paperinik), blackmails them both into selling him back his economic empire. For one single dollar. Best. Story. Ever!

Almost forgot: the works to demolish the Killmotor Hill had already started, and by the time Scrooge counterattack hit them it should have been already erased. So, how did they stop them? Easy: Fethry weaponized his tendence to accidentally set off disasters by getting hired as a worker for the demolition, thus continuously destroyed the demolition engines without even trying. And it was apparently his idea to begin with. When Fethry Duck manages to outsmart the likes of Flintheart and Rockerduck in a realistic way, you know this really is the Best. Story. Ever!

Meta example: IDW Publishing is officially printing all four parts in English for the first time in Uncle Scrooge #13, #14, #15 and #16! (The cover for #13 is also impressive in it's own right!)

In "Donald and Reginella's Wedding" the planet Pacificus was occupied by the armies of the Mighty Bingo and enslaved the inhabitants who, due their pacifism, are unable to resist his middle ages-level forces. The only hope is to bring there Donald, but the only one who could physically go and survive in the outside time would be Reginella herself, who is held prisoner by Bingo who want to marry her... And she and her subjects find a way around that:

The plan is to choose the strongest among the young people of Pacificus and have everyone transfer some of their energy to allow him to go and bring back Donald, but Bingo won't allow them to assemble for the choosing... Cue Reginella casually and effortlessly manipulating the tyrant, with such ease she even calls him an idiot in her mind.

First he crashes the wedding by shooting Bingo right in the ass, twice, frees Reginella, and deals with the immediate chase with a few shots.

After a while Bingo comes with his entire army... Cue the boombox playing a song meaningfully titled "Torment of the Grinder". A few notes and salt shells later, Bingo and his army surrender.

Donald's terms of surrender are awesome by themselves: he has Bingo and his men melt their weapons and armor into agricoltural tools and sends them back to the home they left because they were too lazy to work, and now they will have to work for a living... Or Donald will come for them.

In "Reginella and the Terran Threat", Reginella originally planned to deal with said threat, a vacation village for vips that could ruin Pacificus' way of life and pollute the planet, by having Donald become its director and manipulate it in the desired direction, but then she learned the very presence of so many Earthlings was causing an illness that could drive the Pacificans to extinction... And so, having to chase them off, she finally cut loose with her psychic powers, fully expecting to die in the process, and a single psychic blast was sufficient to have every single Terran except for Donald (who wasn't targeted) too terrified to remain for even a single minute more. What's more, she survives. Disfigured, but survives, and is still strong enough to personally give Donald a handerchief embroidered with the next date of Pacificus' arrival to Earth before having him go too.

In "Wintertime Wager" Donald had lost his home to Gladstone due a stupid dare. How does Donald get the house back? Easy: Daisy gets it back for him, by reminding Gladstone of his own stupid dare that he'd have to complete or give Donald his house back, and when Gladstone could not drink a gallon of lemon juice in a hour...

The Amazing Adventures of Fantomius-Gentleman Thief

This Italian series is dedicated to Fantomius, the Gentleman Thief whose journal inspired Paperinik. Living in the Duckburg of the Roaring Twenties and the early thirties, lord John Quackett AKA Fantomius, his fiancee-accomplice Dolly Paprika and his friend Copernico Gearloose, are doing heist upon heist to humiliate the Rich Idiots With No Day Job of Duckburg, always in style and awesomeness and defeating commissar Pinko's attempts at capturing them. And every single story is made of awesome.

The series existing at all: the previous attempt at using Fantomius outside of flashbacks, the Danish story "The Legacy" and its sequels, had utterly failed in the goal due rampant Continuity Snarl (worse of all, replacing Dolly Paprika with an original character and ignoring the fact that Fantomius died well before Donald found his journal, as stated in the first story). This time instead we get a series that respects the previously established continuity about Fantomius and the general Disney Duck continuity while being awesome all around.

In the first story "The Monte Rosa" Fantomius steals the titular diamond under the eyes of dozens of witnesses and Pinko. Then he notices the owner of the diamond had replaced it with a fake for an insurance scam... So Fantomius goes back, actually steals it plus some money as compensation for making him come back, and reveals his crime to the police.

In "Fantomius' Break-Out" Pinko brags to the radio that Fantomius would never be able to break out once arrested. So Fantomius gets himself arrested and unmasked, breaks out, steals the jewels of the loan shark in whose home he had been arrested, returns to the jail from the main gate and breaks out again leaving behind a mask with his face to convince Pinko he wasn't lord Quackett, just to prove he could. Ladies and gentlemen, the duck who will inspire Paperinik.

In "Fantomius on Board" Fantomius steals a necklace on a ship. It's implied he did it under Scrooge's nose (Scrooge isn't shown, but Fantomius had a mask to replace him, implying he was in fact on that ship).

In "Brutfagor" Fantomius is in Paris and steals a golden mask from the Louvre. What's more, he does it in spite of Hercule Paperoit, a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Hercule Poirot, being there to stop another thief... And Paperoit doesn't even notice him until after he committed the heist and served him the other thief on a silver platter.

In "Silence in the Theater" we find out that United Artist is making movies about Fantomius and Dolly Paprika, with Ducklar Fairbarks and Gloria Squackson (AKA Gloria Swanson) as the leading actors and David F. Griffit as the director. Just this is awesome on its own... Then Fantomius uses the new movie they're shooting to commit a caper, and Pinko is there to try and stop him.

Bonus point for the story being in the style of the silent movies.

In "The Curse of the Pharaoh", Fantomius casually humiliates a crooked archeologist and gets his hands on the map for a silver mine. He also escapes Pinko by jumping down of a window after grabbing a bandage from the archeologist's mummy disguise, with Pinko too busy stopping the archeologist from falling down to give chase.

"The Eighth Wonder of the World" has multiple ones (and you may have already guessed one):

For starters, it features a cameo of Quackmore Duck and the McDuck sisters. Given Italy used to have an Alternate Continuity where Grandma Duck was Scrooge's only sister, just sneaking this in is pure awesome.

After that Fantomius' sees the target of his newest caper: Bong, a giant gorilla. That Fantomius decides to bring back to his island... Except flashes from photographers scare him, and he kidnaps Dolly. Who calms him down, allowing Fantomius to bring him to his submarine for the travel.

Fantomius' submarine. Especially because it's an actual submarine, well before anyone else found a way to keep a boat under the water for an undetermined span of time.

When Bong's captor asks Pinko to stop Fantomius otherwise he'll bring the ape back, the chief of the police has only one thing to say:

"That's what I hope! It would be the only caper of his that I'd approve!"

The crowner: what has happened here inspired Merian C. Cooper into making King Kong. No names altered, just a mr. Cooper quipping it could make a good movie, the captor telling him it would flop and daring him to do it, and the final panel including a poster of King Kong.

In "The Spoils of the Barkservilles", Fantomius and Dolly go to Britain to steal the titular treasure... And succeed in spite of Paper Holmes' presence. Still, Holmes has its own success: he has no evidence to prove it, but has deduced that Fantomius is lord Quackett.

In "The Treasure of the Doge" Fantomius goes to Venice to steal the symbols of the Doge's power, but has to give it to the mysterious sept known as the Guardians of Venice, who have captured Dolly and replaced her with a fake... Except that looking, moving and speaking like Dolly Paprika is not enough to convince Fantomius you're the real deal, so he replaced the treasure with random trash.

The two final panels have two surprises for all readers: the Supreme Guardian takes off his mask, revealing himself as looking like Copernico, Fantomius' Gadgeteer Genius, and what appears to be Scrooge McDuck returning to Duckburg.

"The Nobleman Behind the Mask" is Fantomius' Origin Story. At first he was just a British gentleman, second son of the duke Andrew Quackett and his French wife Marie Lamont, who moved to America, in his family's Calisotan properties, and mused on how to deal with the hypocrisy of the other rich and noblemen. Then he saw Copernico (who he had just befriended) being framed by the baron Von Duck for two thefts he didn't do (he did build what was used to open the safes, but Von Duck asked him for it, stole a ruby from another noble, feigned having been robbed himself to frame him, and didn't pay Copernico for it)... So he decided that the one thing that can defeat a thief masquerading as a gentleman is a gentleman masquerading as a thief, grabbed Copernicus' sping-heeled boots, fryer mushroom (a mushroom-like device that fries and melts locks) and the safe-opener prototype and, wearing an outfit once used by his older brother for a masked ball plus a blue silk mask, strolled in Von Duck's home, opened the safe, put the stolen ruby on his desk, and called the police to expose Von Duck. Then waited, and when Pinko arrested Von Duck and made him confess Fantomius jumped back in, grabbed the ruby, left a literal Calling Card presenting him as "Fantomius-Gentleman Thief", and jumped out before Pinko and the shocked cops could even think to stop him.

"The Rings of Cagliostro" have Fantomius and Dolly trying to find the treasure of the Count of Cagliostro before Lady Senape (who is now working with the Supreme Guardian)... And left her with a sack of buttons. And, being a gentleman, he shared the treasure with the owner of the dilapidated castle where he found it, so he could repair it.

"The Treasure of Francis Drake" is made of awesome:

The opening: back in 1585, Francis Drake coming to New Albion, the village placed where one day Duckburg would be founded, to take revenge on Richard Quackett, the Mad Duke of Duckburg (an old character of Carl Barks that this series has made in one of Fantomius' ancestors) for some unspecified crime... And when he's informed, the Mad Duke doesn't care: he knew he'd come and was ready, and takes the time to thank his friend the Count of Bad Luck for warning him by giving him a portrait of himself.

The Duke's home: a middle-age like castle built on the West Coast of the United States. That he built just because. And he had built two other castles: Three Towers' Castle and the Castle of Dismal Valley.

In the present lord Quackett finds out that a model was kidnapped with the gem-encrusted gown he was targeting, and the current Count of Bad Luck is arrested when the model, after being freed, identifies a room in the impoverished Count's castle as the place where she had been held... Except lord Quackett quickly realizes it was a frame-up by simply asking how long it had been between she had been held in the castle and being released at lord Quackett's doorstep: about half an hour, when it takes over one hour to go from Villa Rose to the Count's castle. That's also enough to realize where she had been held: the castle of the Mad Duke himself.

At the castle, Fantomius and Dolly are searching for the room where the model had been held, and find two new doors. Which one is the right one? The third, hidden and opened by the only undusted brick.

Back at the Count's castle Fantomius looks at the portrait of his ancestor, the only way the Mad Duke could have passed the gold to the ancient count,, and, after noticing the the Duke stands before Three Towers' Castle and the writing “Ars Est Celare Artem”, “Art Is in Hiding Art”, deduces the gold is in the castle. That's when Howard Drake, descendant of Francis Drake, appears, gives a Motive Rant of how he wanted to recover the gold and make the descendants of the Mad Duke and his friend pay for making a fool of his ancestor (hence the frame-up and trying to implicate lord Quackett by releasing the model on his doorstep) and thanks Fantomius for the pointer… Except Fantomius lied: he had noticed someone was spying on them and made that claim to send them in the wrong place… Before calling Pinko on him. Bad guy dealt with without even dirtying his hands on him.

After recovering Henry's journal from the bandits, Fantomius and Dolly find where he is: Atlantis. That was covered by the sands where the sea where it was dried up, but still survives. And Henry is not a prisoner: he could escape whenever he wants, and helps his brother and Dolly doing so, but he wants to stay with the queen, who he married.

The final sequence, back in Duckburg... With Scrooge McDuck back in town for a few daysand asking of his sisters but missing them as they're out of town, preventing their possible reconciliation. Also, it's an awesome moment for the guy who's with Scrooge: Cartesio Pitagorico, who will now install the first defensive devices to the Money Bin. Whatever he did to talk Scrooge into this, deserves this trope.

Villains

Magica de Spell throwing Scrooge into a panic by sending him a threatening Valentine! Top points for style, dahling.

It was the early Carl Barks story Ten-Cent Valentine, for the curious.

Flintheart Glomgold discovering "The Eye of Manco Capac" in The Son of the Sun before Scrooge, then pointing out that even though Scrooge may have claimed the rights to the gold in the area, there's absolutely no gold in his far more valuable find. (Don't worry, of course he doesn't get to keep it.)

Arpin Lusène is generally made of awesome, but the fact that he goes for Adaptive Ability by going back and fixing the universal solvent armor of the flaw that defeated it the first time, then terrorizes Scrooge's "Mooney Been" far more effectively.

In one comic where Donald buys a bit of land, it turns out to be one Scrooge and Rockerduck has been fighting over (they have a comparison about who owns more land- the winner will be allowed to use the other's land for a season), despite the lot being rather worthless. John D. Rockerduck shows up mere seconds before Scrooge is about to buy the piece of land from Donald for a single dollar. Rockerduck proceeds to offer Donald a big check. Donald is ecstatic, and Rockerduck doesn't even gloat, just drives home.

In the Italian story "Zio Paperone e la Meravigliosa Vecchia Ciabatta" (Uncle Scrooge and the Wonderful Old Slipper) Magica finds the recipe for a potion that will make an object irresistible to anyone who sees it except the owner before adding the potion. What does she do with it? Why, she uses it on an old slipper that she sells to Scrooge for his entire fortune and economic empire. She doesn't even need to use the #1 Dime for that amulet anymore...

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